


A Man of Substance

by the_alchemist



Category: Treasure Island & Related Fandoms, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Silver is a man of substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker's account, which has never been overdrawn.  He leaves his wife to manage the inn; and ... she is a woman of colour ..."</p><p>From the few glimpses we get of her, Mrs Silver sounds awesome, and so does their marriage: it seems as though that's the one sphere of life where John is reliable and trustworthy. This is my version of how such a marriage might have come about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man of Substance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/gifts).



> Warnings for references to slavery and a past abusive marriage; for a protagonist who leaves the story with fewer limbs than he had when he entered it, and accompanying injury detail.
> 
> Huge thanks to AlterEgon for her wonderful prompt, which inspired me to reread Treasure Island so I could write this. I hope you like it, AlterEgon!

John Silver was forty the day he decided to marry. His ship had not been docked in Bristol half a day, and he was drinking with some shipmates in the Anchor Tavern, when he noticed the muscular, dark brown arms of Mall, who scrubbed tables there. He looked up past an ample bosom to her kind eyes, good teeth and excellent cheekbones, and decided he was in love.

"Mall," he said. "I'm a-getting married."

"Congratulations," she said. "Who's the fortunate wench?"

"You, Mall."

She chuckled, a rich, throaty sound that made him love her even more. "Ten years ago," she said, "you could’ve 'married' me for a night had you the money, but I'm too old for that game now."

"Mall," he said reprovingly. "Yer not a day over twenty-one, an’ I know it."

"I'm thirty-five," she said. "And even at twenty-one I'd've been too old to have my head turned by the likes of you."

"The likes o’ me?" he said in mock offence. "Madam, I’m a gentleman."

And he turned out his pockets to show her his share of the last voyage's takings; then, plucking out a gold ring, he sprang down on one knee and proffered it to her.

"Marry me, Mall," he said, "an’ it’ll all be yours. This an’ far more beside."

She laughed. "Carry on spending the way your sort always does and it'll soon be mine and Mrs Wilson's anyway.” She stepped back and addressed the whole party. “Now, what'll it be, boys? More grog, or can I introduce you to a few young friends of mine who are more minded to ... marriage, shall we say?"

 

* * *

That night, Mall mopped the floor while Mrs Wilson sat in the corner smoking her pipe and darning stockings.

"You could do a lot worse than him, you know," she said.

"Who?"

"John Silver. Him that proposed marriage to you this afternoon."

Mall laughed. "You were in the kitchen!" she said. "Does nothing pass you by?"

"Nothing as happens in my house," said Mrs Wilson. "And I've had my eye on that one for a long time. He's thrifty, he is."

"Tight-fisted, you mean."

"And clever."

"The Lord save us from clever men."

"All I'm saying is, don't give up on the idea. If I was you I'd at least want to _know_ why they call him ‘Long’ John Silver."

 

* * *

He came back next morning when she was standing at the door, shaking out crumbs from the breakfast tablecloth. "Mall," he said. "I'm a-pining for love of you."

"I expect it's a hangover," she replied. "Here. Help me fold this." And she handed him two corners of the tablecloth.

"I has something to show ye," he went on, and when the tablecloth was folded, he reached into his pocket and brought out a piece of paper. "See this?” He brandished it. “I got meself a banker's account. And when I come back from me next voyage, there’ll be riches enough in it to set us up for good. If Mrs Wilson won't sell us this place I'll buy you another one, and everyone’ll call you Mistress an’ touch their caps to you."

"That's ... very kind," said Mall, seeing that the paper did indeed signify a banker's account in the name of John Silver. "But I've been married before, and I don't care to try it again."

"I'm shipping out again today," he said. "One sweet kiss before I go?"

"Not one, John Silver. Go and find another woman, and save it for her." But his twinkling eyes looked suddenly so crestfallen that she couldn't help going on. "Though there's some bacon and eggs left from the guests' breakfast, and if you'd care to eat them with me then I would be glad of the company."

He told her a story about a storm at sea, and how he saved ship and shipmates, and though she was certain that not one word of it was true, it was as though she could feel the rain and wind, and his strong arms pulling _her_ to safety.

"What nonsense," she said, taking the empty plate before he’d even finished licking his fingers. "But you go safely now, and find yourself a nice girl on one of the islands, or seduce a Captain's daughter, or whatever you will, so long as you get the foolish notion of marrying me out of your head."

 

* * *

In the two years that followed, Mall thought of John Silver only occasionally, and with relief that she had not allowed herself to be taken in by his charm. She served drinks and cleaned tables and found work for her girls, and watched the money in her own banker's account begin (very slowly) to grow.

Then, on a chilly autumn night at three in the morning, there was a heavy knocking on the door of the Anchor. She ignored it. Just some drunk wanting her to open up for him; or if it were a guest who'd lost his key, it’d serve him right to stay out all night. But the knocking didn't stop. Grumbling, she shrugged on a loose gown over her nightdress and trudged downstairs.

Two men she didn't recognise. "Yes?"

"We've brought your husband," said one of them, without introduction. "I'm afraid he's been wounded."

"Wounded, dead and buried," said Mall. "I've been a widow these last twelve years."

The men looked at one another. "Are you Mall Silver?" said one.

"Mall!" The voice that came from behind them was unmistakably John Silver's, though quieter and shakier than she remembered it.

"He's not my husband," said Mall.

"Mall, listen to me ..." He sounded desperate.

"Well," said one of the two men. "Will you take him or shall we bring him to the infirmary?"

"What happened to him?" asked Mall. They stepped aside and by moonlight she could see him lying on a stretcher, wrapped in blankets, though even their thickness could not disguise the fact that where he once had two legs, there was now only one.

"Sweet Mall,” he said, as she dragged her eyes from his leg to his face. “Don't let ‘em take me to the 'firmary. No-one comes out of there alive."

Mall looked away. "I'm sorry," she said to one of the two men, "but this isn't my house. I only work and lodge here."

"Rightio then," said the man. "Sorry to have disturbed you."

And they picked the stretcher up again, making him cry out wordlessly in pain. Then: "Mall!"

She shut the door and trudged up to bed. But she couldn't sleep, and by the time the sun came up, she knew with an infuriating certainty that she would spend the morning at Bristol Royal Infirmary, searching for the man she still had no intention of ever making her husband.

 

* * *

"I knew yer weren’t for letting me down, Mall!" he said.

"This is just for the time being," she said over her shoulder, as she led the stretcher-bearers upstairs. Mrs Wilson had been far too eager to take him in, and had given one of the guest rooms over to his use. "And you'll earn your keep too, or else pay us out of that banker's account of yours. Right. Here we are. Put him in that bed, please." She pulled down the bedclothes.

They set down the stretcher and rolled him out. The bandaged remnant of his left leg knocked against the wooden stretcher rail, and she winced in sympathy as he cried out.

She paid the stretcher bearers, saw them out, then made herself go back. He hadn't moved or pulled the bedclothes over himself, but was lying stretched out straight, eyes shut tight, grinding his teeth in silent anguish. Unwanted pity washed over her like a wave. "John–" she started, the sighed, lifted the bedclothes and put them over him, as gently as she could, though it still made him wince.

He took her hand and held it against his cheek. "Mall," he said. "Mall, what’ll I do?"

"Sleep?” She suggested, disengaging herself. She didn’t suppose he could have slept much in the infirmary, where she had found him lying on a pallet with two other men, one of whom constantly coughed, a dreadful wet sound, like one whose lungs had rotted away into pulp.

“I don’t mean today,” he said. “I mean tomorrow and afterwards. What’ll I _do_?”

But she was already regretting taking him in, and was in no mood to listen to his fears for the future. “I need to make the stew,” said Mall. “Shall I bring you some when it’s done?”

“Then can I trouble you for a cup o’ grog, good Mall? Only to take the edge off the pain, you see.”

And Mall supposed that he probably could.

 

* * *

Mall only meant to visit for a minute to see if he needed anything, but it was the hour between getting everything ready and the tavern beginning to fill up, and she ended up sitting by his bedside until she had to work again.

He told her about the sea-fight where he lost his leg. “They were up against us so close as I could see their faces. I don’t mind telling you, Mall, I was so afeard that me hand shook as I scoured the cannon ready to fire again. For things were in such a desperate sort we’d all turned gunner, Mall – even the ship’s boy.

“But we was too late. They fired first and it was all I could do to push the lad out of way before I took a cannonball to the thigh and felt my bones crack beneath me.

“Ah Mall – as I lay there bleeding on the deck, it was you I thought of, only you, and thought if I could only make it alive back to Bristol to take one more sweet kiss of my one sweet Mall then I could die a happy man.”

“Was _any_ of that true?” asked Mall. “That last thing wasn’t: I know what suffering is, and it doesn’t give the sufferer much leisure to lie around thinking of kisses. And I’m almost certain you didn’t really push the boy out of the way, and I’m not _entirely_ sure you didn’t just get drunk and fall out the rigging.”

He sat up in bed. “If it was a man what said that, Mall, it’d be fighting talk.”

“But as I’m a woman ...”

He sighed. “I weren’t drunk,” he said. “Well ... not _very_ drunk. And it weren’t the rigging.”

He had been fighting with a shipmate over the ownership of a brooch (“I wanted it for you, Mall”). And they’d both fallen off the battlements of a ruined castle. The shipmate – a man called Tom – had landed on his head and died shortly afterwards, and John had landed badly on his left leg.

“Ship’s doctor did his best, Mall – he’d been to universities and everything – but it was shattered all to pieces. I thought nothing could hurt more than it already did, but when he took a saw to me bone it was like the world cracked open and hell spilled out. Took four men to hold me down, it did. And Doctor Jones was hollering at them to keep me still and I was hollering at him to stop, and then I bit one of their hands and the man I bit started hollering too and thank the Lord someone thought to hit me on the head because if not there’d’ve been many more than Tom died that day, and I’d’ve been one, though not before I’d added another couple of murders to my soul’s account.”

“But Doctor Jones’s work held? The wound’s healed now?”

“Not so well as it might of.” He hung his head. “They knocked it when they turned me out the stretcher and I fear it bleeds.”

Mall sighed. “Well, you’d better let me take a look then.”

He had bled through the bandages, and the sheets were smudged from touching them. She unwrapped as gently as she could, to reveal a long and jagged wound, winding a few inches up the side of his thigh. It had reopened along perhaps a third of its length, and had but recently stopped bleeding.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked.

“I thought I’d troubled you enough already, Mall.”

“You thought it would be less trouble just to bleed all over Mrs Wilson’s clean sheets that I put on fresh for you this morning?”

“Don’t be angry Mall, I’m so awful forlorn. I ain’t never felt so bad before.”

“Oh, don’t play pitiful, John Silver. You’re not fooling me.” But she leant over, pressed her smooth brown cheek to his leathery tan one then kissed him lightly on the lips. “I’d better send for a doctor,” she said.

 

* * *

Mall didn’t challenge Doctor Pittam’s assumption that she was willing to change the bandages every other day, and to wait on her guest while he underwent the total bed rest prescribed for him, but she took care to remind John Silver that he was in her debt.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” he said sadly the first time she changed his bandage. The wound had got worse, and was starting to smell bad.

She laughed. “Whyever not?” she said, gently dabbing at it as Dr Pittam had shown her.

“A lady like you – you should sit on cushions and eat sweetmeats and have servants to wait on you hand and foot.”

“That’s not what most people would say,” said Mall. Then: “Sorry,” as he winced. “I’m not a very gentle person, I’m afraid. How did Dr Pittam say it was supposed to go again?” She looked at the bandage.

They lapsed into silence as she concentrated on bandaging. “There,” she said finally. It wasn’t very neat, but she supposed that didn’t matter too much.

“It’s beautiful!” he said, propping himself up on his elbows to admire. “The royal physicians themselves couldn’t do better. After bandaging like that, I wouldn’t be surprised to wake in the morning and find the wound completely healed. If word gets out, Mall, all the youth of England will be cutting off their legs just for the honour of having you attend to them.”

“Don’t be daft,” she said, tucking in a bit of bandage that had come loose. “If it stays the night, it’ll be a miracle.”

“Well,” he said. “To be sure, I’ve seen _neater_ bandaging, but where’s the artistry in that? And where’s the kindness? I’ve never met a woman so kind as you before, Mall. You try to hide it with your cool words, but you’re overflowing with kindness: I see it in your eyes and feel it in your hands.”

“And you’re overflowing with blarney.” But despite herself, she smiled.

 

* * *

As the days went by, she found herself visiting him even when she didn’t have to. She took the mending into his room and listened to his stories while she did it. Sometimes she sat on the bed, her legs stretched out alongside his, their arms touching, but she always refused his entreaties to get under the coverlet or spend the night with him.

Together, they followed the little drama that took place under the bandages. One day it was better, another worse, and sometimes so bad that they had to send for Dr Pittam again. But as the days turned to weeks, the papery pink skin which tore and bled turned thick and white, and one day Dr Pittam pronounced it safe to leave the bandages off, though not for him to leave the bed.

That night, he told her there was something that had been preying on his mind.

“And what’s that, John Silver?” The point of her needle glinted in the candlelight as it dived in and out of the shirt. She wasn’t a neat seamstress, but she was a very quick one.

“You once said you knew what suffering is. A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t suffer, Mall.”

The needle stopped, halfway in and halfway out. “Well,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say any such thing.”

“But you know all about me Mall. I’ve told you ‘bout me mam, me dad, and every one of my voyages since I was a pup.”

“You’ve told me a great many lies,” said Mall, “and maybe I managed to pick out a bone or two of truth from among them, but what of it?”

“But I know nothing about you.”

“Perhaps if you’d stopped talking about yourself for a moment–”

“I’m a-stopping now,” he interrupted. “Tell me your true history, Mall.”

“I’m a great-granddaughter of Queen Dido and a cousin of Cleopatra, seventeen times removed” she said. “My father was king of the Ethiopians, but growing bored with the pampered life of a princess, I stowed away aboard a merchant vessel and made for England, where I could find no more delightful way to while away my hours than to serve sailors in a Bristol tavern. One day I will tire of this and send for my father’s retinue, who will bear me back on a litter made from gold and pearls.”

“Oh Mall,” he said. “I can believe it, I can believe it, you are more beautiful than any princess. Yet will you not tell me the truth? I know I add a bit o’ colour to my yarns now and again, but I swear I’ve also truly shown you the man I am and the boy I was, an’ will you not do the same for me?”

“I was never any boy or man,” said Mall, and she picked up her mending and left, before he had a chance to speak to her again.

 

* * *

The next day, when she brought him his breakfast, he said he was sorry. “I reckon as every person’s past is their own, and they are at liberty to talk about it or not as they wish, and I’m sorry for prying. Can you find it in you to forgive me, Mall?”

And she couldn’t find it in her _not_ to forgive him, and fetched him an extra egg, along with her own breakfast, which she ate sitting by his bedside.

“But if not your past, then what of your future, Mall?”

She had a mouth full of mushrooms, but she held up her hand to stop him, then swallowed. “If the words ‘marry me’ are about to pass your lips,” she said, “then I suggest stopping them up with another bite of sausage.”

He looked down sadly at his plate. “No,” he said. “No, that was when I had prospects. It’s all different now.”

“Prospects?” she said. “Is that what they call it? In my day it was plain thievery.”

“Aye, well whatever it is I don’t suppose I’ll be much good at it without two good legs.”

She looked at him: despite weeks in bed, he still looked bigger and stronger than most men. “Don’t be so sure of that,” she said. “On ... where I grew up there was a man, must’ve been fifty if he was a day, but like you he was strong and hale and broad-shouldered. And he only had one leg, but he used a crutch – just the one, so he had his hand free – and did the work of two men half his age.”

“Truly?”

“I talked about it with Dr Pittam. When he comes next week he’s bringing you a crutch, so we can see.”

“Well, all the same–” He sighed. “Work is one thing, but marriage is another. Why would any woman want me when she could have a whole man?”

Mall chuckled. “John Silver,” she said, “I am not so easily tricked as that. I won’t deny that I’ve grown fond of you, and you know as well as I do that I couldn’t care less if you have two legs or one or none or five, but you are still a liar and a scoundrel, and I will not marry such a man.”

“I ...” He looked as though he had been going to defend himself, but instead he deflated. “I am at that, Mall,” he said. “But I could stop lying, I think. To you at any rate. If I could be an honest man for a month or a year or a decade, would you trust me then?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “It seems to me that beneath the tricks you let me see, there are other tricks I don’t see, and I suppose I’d think your ‘honesty’ was one of them.

She paused, and looked him up and down. “I ... don’t understand what you want from me,” she went on. “Though I have a little put aside, I am not a wealthy woman, and neither am I young or beautiful. And married to me, you would never be able to be a gentleman no matter how much money you had and no matter how well you covered up how you got it.”

“I want _you_ , Mall,” he said. “I want your kindness and your good business sense. I want you in my bed when I’m on land, and I want you running our affairs when I’m at sea. I want to take care of you, and I want you to take care of me.”

And Mall sighed, because she couldn’t think of a better explanation but that he was telling the truth.

“Here.” He thrust a piece of paper toward her.

“What’s this?” But as she unfolded it, she saw. “John, is this real? What have you done? If you tricked Mrs Wilson ...”

“Mrs Wilson wished to retire,” he said. “She’s to live with her lad and his missus in Wiltshire. And I bought the Anchor from her at the going rate, all fair and square. I got the papers if you don’t believe me.”

“But it’s not in your name. It’s not even half in your name.” Deeds made out to ‘Mr and Mrs Silver’ she would have understood, but this ...

“It’s yours, Mall. And you already know _I’m_ yours if you want me. And if you don’t, I’ll go, an’ no hard feelings. If I didn’t die of a broken leg I doubt I’ll die of a broken heart. I'm a cheerful soul, and have never found the knack of pining long, for lost legs _or_ lost loves.”

She stared at him. “I can’t take this,” she said. “Not if I don’t marry you.”

He shrugged. “I owe you _something_ ,” he said. “If you want you can sell up, take what you’re owed for the last few weeks and give the rest away. There’s no shortage of widows and orphans in the world.”

“What’ll you do?”

“Like you said. Learn to walk again. Go to sea again. Eat, drink, laugh, fight, yes and steal too. Live, then one day die. Like all men do. Like I suppose your friend did.”

“My friend?”

“The one-legged man.”

“Yes.” She paused, remembering. “He didn’t get much chance to laugh,” she said. Then: “I suppose it’s obvious I was born a slave.”

“There’s no shame in that,” he said quickly. “It’s them what enslaved you as should be ashamed.”

“I’m not ashamed,” she said. “I just prefer not to talk about it. But when I was a free woman I did a shameful thing. I sold myself into the second slavery of a bad marriage.” She looked at him. “And I don’t want to talk about that either,” she added quickly, in response to his raised eyebrows. “But ... I swore never to marry again. And if you seem like a better man, well, I suppose he must have seemed like a good enough man before I married him.”

She stared at the piece of paper still in her hand. “And if I marry you, this will be yours again, won’t it? And everything I had before too. That’s how the law works, I think.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I don’t want it. There must be a way, mustn’t there? We’ll get a lawyer, one that’s been in the universities.”

“No lawyers,” she said, then, slowly: “and no priests or parsons. I’ll marry you, John Silver, and I’ll take your name – though I don’t suppose it’s the one you were born with – but I want no banns, no licenses, no witnesses, no weddings. We’ll marry here–” she touched his chest where his heart was, and then her own, “... and here. But nowhere else. Deal?”

And his big face split into a broad grin. “It’s a deal, Mall Silver, ‘til death us do part.”


End file.
